Rollforming apparatus has been developed in various configurations to produce profile shapes from sheet or coiled formable material such as sheet metal. The rollforming apparatus must be able to accommodate a range of material gauges. In the past this has been achieved by mechanical adjustment of the rollforming heads. This adjustment may be effected manually or there may be complex servo assisted adjusting devices for positioning the tooling clearances to match the thickness of the material being formed. Another approach is to cause one rollforming roller to rise linearly against the action of an appropriate biasing force.
All of the existing means of adjusting rollforming apparatus to accommodate varying material thicknesses are either complex and expensive, time consuming, or have a tendency to damage the lead in section of the material being formed.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide rollforming apparatus and in particular rollforming stations with automatic gauge setting means at said rollforming stations which will accommodate a range of different gauges of material while minimising damage to the material being formed particularly during adjustment to a new gauge of material.